MaFt's (Almost) Daily Blog

Kate Morley recommends you try free prints at PhotoBox

2011-06-22T00:59:00.001+01:00

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Kate Morley recommends you try free prints at PhotoBox

2011-06-15T00:59:00.001+01:00

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New Websites!

2008-02-04T11:20:00.000Z

Well, my two latest sites are now up and running:

First up is seventyseventimes (77x) - the new name for Punk Worship.

Secondly is the redesigned jalapenodrums.co.uk - this has already had some good comments on the Mike Dolbear forum which is nice!

MaFt

The End of Punk Worship?

2008-01-31T15:45:00.001Z

Hmm... Why do I get the feeling that this Sunday Morning will be the end of Punk Worship?

MaFt

Darn it's Windy!

2008-01-23T16:48:00.001Z

Why is the weather so rubbish? Not only have we had loads of rain but loads of wind too! I wouldn't mind too much but my passenger side car door leaks when the wind and rain are blowing in a certain direction... on Monday I had to scoop out about half an inch of water from the passenger foot-well...

Anyone want to buy me a new car?

MaFt

CD Clearout!

2008-01-19T21:33:00.000Z

Having a bit of a clearout of CD's so head over to http://maft.co.uk/ebay to see if you can grab yourself a bargain!

MaFt

Decorating Woes

2008-01-16T10:54:00.001Z

Been stupidly busy for pretty much a full week hence no action on the blog! We'd been planning for a while to decorate Mini-MaFt's bedroom with Disney Cars stuff as Winnie the Pooh was a bit babyish for him now. Mrs-MaFt decided to start pulling wallpaper off so that the room looked a mess and we'd actually get around to doing it!

The actual decorating wasn't too bad except for one sheet of the paper having brown marks on it and a big white patch meaning we ran out of paper...The shop where we got it from has run out and won't get any until the end of this week - so there's currently half a wall unpapered!! We decided that on the outside wall we would put up some polystyrene veneer just to keep it a bit warmer and reduce any dampness. The only thing being that when the paper was put over it and it dried it peeled the veneer off the wall and seems to have shrunk the paper (leaving gaps between the sheets)... Wallpaper paste doesn't keep it down so we've had to resort to Pritt-Stick to keep it down!! There's still a bit of a gap which we'll have to put a bit of paint over (if we can find a good match) - not ideal but it's better than pulling the whole lot off!

To finish the room off we got Mini-MaFt a racing car bed - you should have seen his face, he was soooo excited!! The bed was easy to put up until it got to putting on the stickers. There were 3 massive sheets with the vinyl stickers on them - none of which really matched the pictures in the instruction book and they all seemed too big anyway! Even more annoying was the fact that they were not even cut! So not only did we have to decide how we were going to stick them on, which we would use and which would would leave off, we also had to cut the flippin' things out as well! It took a while, but it looks good!

Anyway, ack to work, I need to check stock levels of wallpaper and try find some paint!

MaFt

An Early Start

2008-01-02T10:05:00.000Z

I mis-set my alarm last night and instead of getting up at the planned 6.30am I had set it for 4.30am... Thing is I didn't notice and came down and booted up the laptop to start work. I then went into the kitchen to make a coffee and saw the time on the oven read 4.34 - my initial thought was 'oh, we must have had a power cut' then I checked my phone* which confirmed it was still stupid o'clock in the morning...

I actually toyed with the idea of actually starting some work but after about 2 seconds I thought 'sod it' and went back to bed for a couple of hours!

MaFt

* my phone which now looks rather swish thanks to the awesome free UI, called '.Home' from PointUI.

Almost 2008...

2007-12-31T15:11:00.000Z

Well, Christmas is done (and boy was it hectic!) - expect the run-down of cracker jokes early in the new year when I have a bit more time!

Have a good one tonight!

MaFt

Bradford - Town of Lies

2007-12-19T13:40:00.000Z

Place names are usually fairly descriptive, for example Hill Top Road is a road at the top of a hill; Hill Top Fisheries is a Chippy at the top of a hill; Little John's Kebab Hut is a kebab hut owned by a man called John who happens to be vertically challenged.

So, from that, what would you expect Four Lane Ends and Five Lane Ends to be? Logically it would be the point where 4/5 lanes meet, perhaps at a roundabout or at a traffic light controlled junction...? Well, you'd be wrong for thinking that! Here they are:

As you can see, Four Lane Ends would be better off called "One Lane Goes Through and Two Others End" and Five Lane Ends is clearly "Six Lane Ends"...

I wonder if it's worth starting a one-man campaign to get their names changed?

MaFt

Why Did I Bother?!

2007-12-17T12:56:00.000Z

At about 1 this morning I signed up to a handful of free online business directory thingy's in the hope of drumming up a bit of business. Each one, however, had a warning that they "have been receiving reports of companies phoning soon after adding a listing to try and sell advertising space, these are in no way affiliated with us".

Needless to say I've had three of these calls this morning trying to pressurise me into giving them £500 over the phone to get an A6 advert into their wonderful magazine that no one has heard of but it will guarantee over 11 contacts each week...

Reckon I'll give them a miss and just deal with customers directly for now!!

MaFt

A Cold One!

2007-12-13T11:16:00.000Z

A chilly start this morning...

Upgraded!

2007-12-12T13:13:00.001Z

This morning I took the plunge and updated my phone to Windows Mobile 6! No major issues to report and it actually seems to run a bit faster too but that could just be cos it's nice and fresh!

One other advantage was that because it's a new ROM and therefore essentially a nice, clean registry then I can reinstall Opera Mobile for another 30 days! I'm holding off buying this as a new version is due out soon. I emailed them to ask if I bought it now would I get version 9 for free when it was released and was told no, I couldn't... No chance I'm paying twice for it so they can wait for now!

MaFt

Proper Annoying

2007-12-07T11:43:00.000Z

Virgin Broadband is currently down... Well, their official description is: "Customers across the Yorkshire region may currently be experiencing a loss of their broadband Internet services". Basically, I can get to a few sites but not any of the ones I need to... like maft.co.uk for my emails (can get them on the phone though), pocketgpsworld.com (so can't get any work done - ie no money), garminpoi.co.uk (so can't update that site and get a small amount of advertising money).

So, generally, it sucks! So I thought I'd share my moaning with you here on the blog cos Virgin let me go to blogger.com!

See ya

MaFt

Nearly Christmas!

2007-12-05T10:44:00.000Z

For those thinking "it'll be Christmas by the time he blogs again" well, you're wrong. But not too far from the truth though!

Been stupidly busy sorting out poorly kids and poorly me as well as trying to get stuff sorted for the Christmas play I stupidly agreed to do...

I've been pretty busy with work stuff to - lots to do with PocketGPSWorld.com as usual but I've also recently finished the Migrant Workers Information Bradford site as well as completely redesigning the Jalapeno Drums site. The Jalapeno one is still showing the old site while we wait for domain names to be switched between hosts etc etc - all great fun...! I've also updated the portfolio part of my site at MaFt.co.uk/design so it's not been a total loss!

That'll do for now, I'll try post more in the near future!

MaFt

----------------
Now playing: Bowling For Soup - I'm Gay
via FoxyTunes

Javascript

2007-10-05T09:01:00.000+01:00

I'm currently teaching myself Javascript which is turning out to be considerably more complex than I'd first imagined! I'm using the O-Reilly book by David Flanagan and I'm currently up to page 105 of 591 (and then another 450 reference pages...!) which is pretty easy to follow. O-Reilly books seem to be very good, they managed to teach me PHP quickly enough too! Still, once it's done it'll be handy!

Right, back to reading :)

MaFt

----------------
Now playing: The Sex Pistols - Did You No Wrong
via FoxyTunes

Excuses Excuses...

2007-09-28T14:39:00.000+01:00

Well, yes, it's been over 10 weeks since I last blogged - and that was a rubbish one...

So, what have I been up to? Well, lots really! Still working hard though! The main reason for the lack of updates was my main PC dying. The motherboard died but it wasn't just a case of replacing it. Noooo... stupid MaFt decided to have one of those Small Form Factor PCs (BioStar IDEQ) with proprietary innards. So, it was a new case and motherboard that I needed - slightly more expensive. Then I realised my PC was about 4 years old so none of the other, working, parts could be used with any new equipment... I had to buy a whole new system - the only bits I kept were the monitor, keyboard, mouse and DVD-burner. Also, thanks to the good folk on the GarminPOI.co.uk Mailing List who donated just over £200 the new stuff didn't cost me anything. I just now need to get that site back up to date for everyone!

Our iron also passed-away, as has my digital camera and my camcorder... However, JVC offered to fix the camcorder for free (even three years out of warranty) as it has a faulty CCD which has caused problems in virtually every unit they were put in. So that was nice of them, shame Olympus want £150 to fix the camera (which I could buy new for less).

Punk Worship 3volution is fast approaching too and this time we've opted for early Saturday mornings for practises seeing as that's the only time slot free between the four of us...

Oh, before I finish, here's a great big thanks to TrixMoto for writing a script for me for MediaMonkey 3 to upload my currently playing song via FTP so I can link to it in the panel on the left! Clever stuff eh?! Also, FoxyTunes added a blogger thingy-ma-bob that shows the world what was on when I typed the post too.

See ya

MaFt

----------------
Now playing: Bowling For Soup - Ohio (Come Back To Texas)
via FoxyTunes

Haiku

2007-07-17T12:50:00.000+01:00

Haikus are easy
But sometimes they don't make sense
Refrigerator

Piff Poff Poof

2007-07-02T18:19:00.000+01:00

...And as if by magic the pubs are now smoke-free!

In case you didn't know, the UK smoking ban is now in place. Soon it'll be illegal to fart in public too.

Now, go buy my stuff!

MaFt

The Promised Pictures

2007-06-28T14:33:00.001+01:00

Well, here they are, the promised photo's of our local Harrier Jumpjet! Shoetree and his lovely lady-wife came over yesterday so I took them for a drive to see the plane too :)

Well, here they are, the promised photo's of our local Harrier Jumpjet! Shoetree and his lovely lady-wife came over yesterday so I took them for a drive to see the plane too :)

MaFt

Harrier JumpJet

2007-06-21T08:01:00.001+01:00

We were driving up to Queensbury yesterday along the Brighouse & Denholme Road and I happened to look out of the window. TO my surprise, there was a Harrier JumpJet in someone's garden. Not a toy, an actual real Harrier JumpJet!

To confirm I wasn't going mad, we stopped on the way back to make sure... And it was still there - a real, full-size, not a toy, Royal Navy Harrier JumpJet.

If you don't believe me then head over to The Raggalds pub and it's opposite there. I'll try get a photo at some point!

MaFt

Driving Me Mad!

2007-05-23T21:29:00.000+01:00

Someone recently bought Mini-MaFt a 'My First Remote Controlled Car' as a "your not the special baby anymore but we feel sorry for you so here's a present" gift. However, it doesn't use RF as most radio controlled cars do, no, this one uses Infra Red.

Not a problem really - the car functions adequately in both forward and reverse using the supplied controller. It also functions adequately using any remote control in the house... You can be flicking channels and this little toy car starts rolling along the floor with it's lights flashing away!

The thing is, it always catches me off guard and makes me jump when flicking between episodes of The Simpsons!

MaFt

Pig (Part II)

2007-05-16T00:48:00.000+01:00

OK, even if the whole 'eating a full pack of mini batenburgs' thing wasn't piggish behaviour then I think this might be:

Today we were in Morrisons and I noticed that Creme Eggs we only 18p - a whole 2p cheaper than in Woolworths just over the car park! I had to by five. It would have been wrong not to!

I ate four of them, it would have been five but I gave one way to a homeless child. Well, not quite homeless, I gave it to one of Mini-MaFt's friends, Master-O - he was most pleased! I might get some more tomorrow ;)

MaFt

Lifetime Guarantee

2007-05-06T22:56:00.000+01:00

Whoever thought up this one was a flippin' genius! I mean, normally you get a one year guarantee on something that you can guarantee will break after one year and a day. However, the cunning marketing people at far too many companies obviously realised that instead of spending all that R&D money designing products that fail exactly one year and twenty-four hours after their first use, they could do it another way.

Simply give the product a 'lifetime' guarantee! You see, it is guaranteed to work for the product's lifetime - as soon as it breaks, it's guarantee has passed! The products lifetime is over and so, therefore, it it's guarantee. Clever sods, aren't they?!

And so, in keeping with this fine tradition, I offer a lifetime guarantee for this blog. It will always be here, right up until it's not!

MaFt

Is This The Behaviour Of A Pig?

2007-05-01T15:10:00.000+01:00

Mrs-MaFt has just accused me of being a pig. All I did was eat a pack of five mini battenburgs - I hardly feel that it deserves such a personal insult...

I blame the pregnancy hormones!

Mini Battenburgs

MaFt

GET VOTING!

2007-04-27T18:50:00.000+01:00

I've been designing a couple of t-shirts over the last week or so - please go vote for me cos I might win £500 and get my shorts printed!

http://www.dshirt.co.uk/profile.php?usr=maft

MaFt

Rollercoaster

2007-04-26T21:45:00.000+01:00

These last two days have been a rollercoaster of mixed emotions.

Yesterday morning we found out that a good friend of Mrs-MaFt and myself had died suddenly and very unexpectedly. She was only 31 and has left behind a husband and 3 young boys (11 weeks, 3 years and 5 years). We still can't really believe it but have to try and get on.

This morning was the total opposite as it was the extraction of Mini-Mrs-MaFt - a beautiful little girl weighing in at 6lb 8oz. Mini-MaFt loves her to bits (which is a good thing!). Pictures below - I'm tired and off to bed!

Fact For The Day

2007-04-25T00:09:00.000+01:00

Dinosaurs and humans lived on Earth at the same time.

[please note that this post worked better when the images linked correctly... have a read of this to see them: http://www.creationists.org/mananddinos.html]

How else can you explain the images on these Inca burial stones from 500-1500AD?

Or this Aboriginal painting from Queensland

Or a Buddhist temple carving in Cambodia from around 1200AD:

If dinosaur bones were only din the last 200 or so years then how come there re some damn-good depictions of them knocking about from waaaaaaaaaaay before then? The simple answer: they lived only thousands of years ago as opposed to millions and at the same time as humans!

MaFt

Makka Pakka

2007-04-18T14:33:00.000+01:00

Makka Pakka, Makka Pakka, Makka Pakka!

Eh?! What? You obviously haven't seen 'In The Night Garden' - created by the very same mentalists who did the Teletubbies.

Mini-MaFt likes it but hasn't quite grasped how to say 'Makka Pakka' yet, instead it comes out as 'Paki' which he shouts at the top of his voice... Living in Bradford, I'm now scared to take him out of the house!!!

Makka Pakka

MaFt

Due Date

2007-04-17T15:28:00.000+01:00

Well, I feel like David Beckham at the moment. We have a date for the Caesaeaeaserereasn Section (lots of problems with Mini-MaFt's birth so we've been told Mrs-MaFt can have a CS again!) - it's really weird cos the consultant said to us "so, is the 26th April OK for you?" but I was expecting them to just give us a date! I can make it to the big football game after all!

So, Mini-Mrs-MaFt shall be extracted ('born' doesn't seem to describe the process effectively) a week on Thursday. We just need to decide on a name so I can get their domain name and website sorted a-la Mini-MaFt's site.

See ya

MaFt

Older, But Not Much Wiser

2007-04-16T00:01:00.000+01:00

I am now 27... In fact I've been 27 since last Tuesday. I feel older, but I wish I was a bit wiser!

MaFt

Reboot

2007-04-04T08:25:00.000+01:00

Nearly six years later I've finally got around to editing our wedding video. It's taken a while but it's now ready. Why's it taken so long? Well, originally Brother-T was going to edit his video along with another video tht was made of the wedding but he never had time to get it done - so we just had both recordings running back to back on VHS. Now I have the technology I've been able to rip the original tapes onto the computer and mix the two tapes together... six years later...

Last night, after checking all 1hr 32min 53secs of the video for the second time for any mistakes etc, I decided it was ready for exporting. It was about 11pm so took the decision to leave it all rendering over night as I knew it would take about 8 hours - I could do it quicker but that would involve spending money on a new processor, which would also need a new motherboard to sit in along with new RAM and a new case too... I can't be bothered spending all that just to speed up video rendering!

Anyway, I got up this morning to check it had done it alright and my 'start up windows' were showing. "Great", I thought, "my computer rebooted before it finished". After checking the system logs it turns out that at 3.22am my PC rebooted. The reason? Windows had installed an update and said it needed to reboot in order to complete the installation; it would do this automatically for me if I didn't press a key in the next 15 seconds. Well, Mr Windows XP, at 3.22am how the heck am I supposed to see that when I'm in bed fast asleep? Idiot!

What's the point in having the option ticked for only installing updates when I'm ready if it just goes ahead and does it anyway?! So now I've got to export it all again while I'm doing my work...

Annoyed? You bet!

MaFt

Lame Excuse?

2007-03-30T22:22:00.000+01:00

One of the down-sides to working from home is the sever lack of blog material I encounter. Working at Leeds Uni was great as I used to commute via bus, train and foot every day. When I was at Nektar I had loads of time doing nothing (and getting paid for it) so blogging was easier. However, now I'm working at home I tend not to come across any peculiar folk that I can write about. Unless, that is, you're interested in the Jehovah's Witness who called round the other day; or the seemingly unendless cold callers telling me I'm entitled to a government grant for free cavity wall insulation - free if you're on benefits. Although I'm told they offer a 50% discount if you're not - hardly free though, is it? Twice they rang today! If you think that having regular phone calls asking if we sell the finest Indian spices is fun then let me know and I can blog about that for you too... I could tell you about Kia the cats smelly breath as she huddles up next to me on the couch, but it's hard to explain the smell with words - if you've ever done a dissection then I can tell you that her breath smells like the innards of a pig, actually, no, probably more like the innards of a chicken.

So, anyway, I'm babbling! Catch ya later!

MaFt

He's A Really Happy Man

2007-03-22T08:20:00.000Z

Why does Postman Pat always wear his uniform? I know a guy who used to be a postman and outside of working hours he dressed like a normal person. What sort of impression does that give to children? Postman Pat is one big lie and it's about time something was done about it...

Postman Pat (in case you didn't know)

MaFt

Walk, Fly, Fly, Fly, Drive, Sleep

2007-03-19T10:18:00.000Z

Yesterday was our last day at CeBIT and involved, as the blog entry title suggests, walking, flying, flying, flying and eventually sleeping. After our final bit of reporting in the morning we got our stuff and waited for our taxi to start us off on our trip back to the UK. It was only a short taxi ride though as instead of getting the 40 minute taxi to the airport we got the 10 minute taxi to the heliport where we got a helicopter transfer to the airport - much more fun! We then flew, by plane, from Hanover to London Stansted and then I flew back from London to Manchester.

Three flights in one day - I have a feeling I'm not going to beat that personal record for some time...

MaFt

Make Your Segway

2007-03-17T09:11:00.000Z

Well, CeBIT is great so far. I've got a bit of spare time in the press office so after writing my reviews thought I'd show off by posting this picture of me on a Segway!

One thing that has annoyed me though is Google and Blogger picking up on the fact I have a German IP address and trying to be 'helpful' by making all the text German... Grr... Luckily I've used Blogger long enough to be able to guess what the links are for!

MaFt

You're So Vain You Think This Blog Is About You

2007-03-14T12:10:00.000Z

Is it just mine or do everyone's MSN conversations take bizarre twists and turns within a short time? Yesterday I was talking to Bli and what started off fairly normal (a broken car) soon turned a bit weird (poo-powered terrorists)...

Note that the colours have been changed to protect the innocent and the poor spelling left intact to protect our status as retards:

Bli says:
my car blew up on the way back to work the other day
MaFt says:
nasty
Bli says:
lot of smoke n stuff .. head gasket blew
MaFt says:
scary. did it go bang?
Bli says:
it did
MaFt says:
cool
Bli says:
on a very busy main road
Bli says:
with lotsa cars trying to go round me without getting too close
MaFt says:
you must smell...
Bli says:
nah .. prolly thought i was a suicide bomber
MaFt says:
wrong colour.
MaFt says:
but you DO have a beard...
MaFt says:
anyway, how can you be a suicide bomber if youve not killed yourself?
Bli says:
damn foiled again
MaFt says:
surel you would just be a potenial sicide bomber? in which case we all have that potential
Bli says:
a failed suicide bommber .. used the wrong fertilsier
MaFt says:
yeah, you can't just use your own poo... muppet!
Bli says:
oh rrreeeeaaalllly...?

Right, that's it for now, I'm off to Germany,

See ya!

MaFt

MONKEY!

2007-03-13T08:27:00.000Z

Monkey's are great, you can't beat 'em. So it was a great delight when I saw that PG Tips had stolen ITV Digital's advertising campaign of Johnny Vegas and Monkey to sell their bags of leaves.

The thing is, I only drink, on average, one cup of tea a month. I'm too lazy to put the kettle on, stick a tea bag in a cup, stir it, add milk etc etc. Then, when I do bother I nearly always forget and by the time I've remembered the kettle's gone cold again... A glass of water is much less work!

In order to get my free monkey I had to buy a box of 160 tea bags - remember: 1 tea bag per month. To get my 'free' monkey I have had to buy 13 years and 4 months worth of tea bags... Hardly 'free' is it?!

MaFt

Black & Blue

2007-03-09T18:28:00.000Z

I got bored the other day and made a new image for my desktop:

It's Mini-MaFt with his 'haton'

MaFt

Brushes

2007-03-07T08:59:00.000Z

A brush is a brush. It serves a very simple purpose: to brush things. And as such they were created as very simple, inelegant and pretty boring organisms. Take, for example a sweeping brush; It has a long pole with bristles on the end. The hair brush has a small handle with bristles on the end. The brush from a dust-pan and brush is a mid-point between these two - it has a medium sized handle with bristles on the end. Generally, the brush species each share the common traits of a handle with bristles on the end. Like I stated earlier, they are simple, boring creatures. They usually live hidden out of sight...

Why then do we put so much emphasis on the bog-brush? Why can't we just let them be a natural species? Why do we need to genetically modify them to produce fancy looking things? Take these examples:

Considering this species of brush is generally used for swishing around in wee and poo infested toilets, you'd think they'd be bred to be a bit plainer like the other brushes...

MaFt

Busy Busy Busy

2007-02-28T16:21:00.000Z

Last night I was up until about 1am sorting out both Mini-MaFt's website and getting my head around setting up a Cron job and associated php script to automatically create a backup of a MySQL database...

It was fun, and we got there in the end with some help from the excellent Support guys at Blackfoot Hosting!

Having said that I'm only up to August 2006 for Mini-MaFt's site so there's still a bit more to do...

MaFt

Changes

2007-02-27T00:36:00.000Z

I've (rather reluctantly) moved my blog back onto the Blogger hosting to take advantage of some of the new features available which they don't let you use if you FTP to your own host...

Because of this you may need to change your link to the RSS feed, if you use it, to this: http://maftmaft.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Cheers

MaFt

Not Again...

2007-02-26T10:16:00.000Z

Carrying on from yesterdays mis-adventure I nearly did the opposite earlier on... King of Shaves shaving gel nearly went in my hair...! Luckily I noticed (unlike yesterday) and didn't actually squeeze any out this time!

I blame a long night with little sleep (cheers Mini-MaFt!)

MaFt

Don't You Just Hate It When...

2007-02-25T09:01:00.000Z

You start using hair-gel instead of shaving-gel...

Animal Farm

2007-02-15T08:56:00.000Z

Received this the other day:

Dear Reader

Petitioning the Prime Minister seems to be very much in vogue at present, with the media giving a great deal of coverage to Number 10's dedicated website. A new petition has been set up via that website in support of animal research, stating:

Animal research has enabled scientists to find treatments for cancer, vaccines and antibiotics. This does not advocate using animals unnecessarily but animal research is required because sometimes there are no other viable alternatives. In addition it is unrealistic to force animal research to stop by a certain date since nobody can predict future scientific progress in finding other methods that produce accurate results compared with those from animal research. It is for these reasons this petition calls for continued support for animal research.

If you would like to support this petition, it can be found at: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/animalresearch/

Thanks again for your continuing support.

Yours

Jo

Jo Tanner
Chief Executive
Coalition for Medical Progress

Go on, do it for the kids!

MaFt

The Verdict.

2007-02-12T14:12:00.000Z

Anyone else watching this? It seems pretty good so far actually but like most 'reality' TV there's a cynical part of me that thinks that it's not going to actually be that real...

The 12 jurors (some random 'celebrities') have to decide the outcome of a rape case. The case is fictional and is based on evidence taken form actors after an unscripted, ad-libbed 'event'. Because of this then surely the witnesses etc aren't going to be realistic as they know all along what happened and that none of it was real... Also, the jurors know none of it was real so they'll have to be very strict with themselves to treat it as such and not to just have fun with it.

Still, it's good telly and the first proper use of my DVD Recorder too! What would have topped it all off though was if they had got Judge Judy to preside over the case!

MaFt

How Do The Canadians Do It?

2007-02-08T12:47:00.000Z

Why does Britain come to a total standstill when there's the slightest bit of snow?!

However, the really annoying thing is that, with working from home, I can no longer phone up and say "My bus hasn't turned up because of the snow so I won't be in work today".

MaFt

Mmmmm

2007-02-05T08:41:00.001Z

There's nowt beats a freshly baked Pork Pie!

MaFt

The Cupboard Conversion

2007-01-27T08:06:00.000Z

In a bid to create some more space in the attic Mrs-MaFt had this crazy mental idea to convert a cupboard on the landing into a computer area. I had this crazy mental idea to agree and actually pull it off!

First task was to get everything out of there - a set of drawers and a bunch of coats and other random crap. I did find my Voice Of The Mysterons badge though! And once that was done I got measuring - ya know, to make sure it was feasible and so that I didn't have any nasty surprises later on...

Phase 1.5 was to drill a few holes and stick some cables in fr the power. Phase 2 was to stick up a load of brackets for the shelves to sit on:

Just look at the lovely aqua coloured walls...

To cut the shelves I hired a magical saw that cut them itself without any kind of human intervention. As you can see from the photo below, I'm not telling porkies - you can clearly see that there are no hands assisting the saw.

The magical 'self-cutting' saw.

With the drawers cut to size and their perfect fit(!) confirmed I went about painting over the garish aqua with a nice, plain white.

White wash!

The next step was obviously to fit the shelves and then get those painted too. For the keyboard tray I just robbed the rollers from my old computer desk and used those - no point reinventing the wheel eh?

Shelves in place...

...and painted in matching white.

It was then time to move in. All was going well until I tried to put the monitor in... Erm... My measuring clearly wasn't up to scratch as it didn't fit... Neither did the 15inch monitor I swapped it for with Nephew-J... Damn, I'm going to have to buy a nice 19" Widescren TFT monitor. What a shame that will be :D For the meantime I'm using TightVNC to control my PC via the laptop. Works well too!

Anyway, here it is in all it's glory (sans monitor):

Ta-Da!

MaFt

Update

2007-01-26T13:55:00.000Z

I'm not ignoring you all, I've just been busy with trying to get stuff sorted at home! I've been busy converting an old cupboard into a computer hideout but my monitor doesn't fit in there so I can't really use it yet (hence the lack of updates).

So, once I'm sorted and can pull a load of pictures off my phone I'll get the blog updated!

Cheers

MaFt

Steven Spiel-MaFt

2007-01-13T21:59:00.000Z

Blimey, I've let a week slip by again without any posts... So, I'm not sitting here with a pint of Wells Banana Bread Beer bringing you up to speed.

So, basically I've been getting lots of work done - both paid work and unpaid work. I've been a busy bee getting a load of video editing done but have hit a potential stumbling block... Disc space, or rather the lack of it. Never the mind though as I've worked out a way around it - it took a lot longer to work this out than I believe it should have though... I'm just putting the finishing touches to the bonus disc of the Punk Worship DVD I'm doing so once that's burnt I can get rid of the raw footage which will free up enough space (about 30GB) so that I can finish off my wedding video and Brother-A's wedding video.

Once those are done I'll have enough free space to do the main disc of the Punk Worship DVD set, for which I'll need about 45GB just for the raw footage. Then when that's done I can get cracking on Mini-MaFt's First Year DVD and a tonne of other odd little recordings I need to sort out.

It's scary to think that I can happily sit and manipulate 20GB files when only 7 years ago my first computer had a (then) massive 6.4GB hard drive. Big Brother-T said at the time "you'll never need all that space but if you've got the money you may as well have it". Well, now I have 18GB free space out of the 320GB I have available - and I cleared about 10GB the other day just from odd video files knocking about...

Space, the final frontier - I'll never have enough...

MaFt

Vegetarian Haggis

2007-01-05T09:57:00.000Z

I'll try anything once. Well, maybe not anything, but most things. When Dougsy the Scottish Beast came down for PW2 last month he brought with him a gift. That gift was a Vegetarian Haggis made by Macsween of Edinburgh.

The other day I finally got around to cooking and eating it. After removing the outer packaging and inner packaging I was faced with this:

The instructions said I could either oven it for 45 minutes, boil it for 45 minutes or microwave it for 8 minutes. Being both a modern man and a lazy man I opted for the microwave approach. This involved having to cut the haggis up into slices:

...slapping it in the microwave...

...and, after 8 minutes, removing the now cooked haggis:

Then came the scary part. Actually eating it! It was quite nutty and stodgy although I think I only managed to finish one slice of it... Don't get me wrong Dougsy, I certainly appreciate the gesture but vegetarian haggis is one thing that is being put on my "I've tried it once, and only once" list. Cheers though!

MaFt

New Year, Old Jokes

2007-01-02T10:11:00.000Z

Yesterday we decided to take all the decorations down and rearrange the living room. While we were taking the tree down we realised we had not pulled any crackers! We'd put them on the tree as decorations but owing to us eating out on Christmas day (if you were about to ask, it was pretty crap) and being at various family members' houses for the rest of the week we never had time for them.

So, in case you were wondering on the quality of the gifts and jokes that we had, here is the run down of all 12 jokes and all 12 gifts (in no particular order):

Gifts:

1. Fiddly Metal Toy Thing - one of those little things you fiddle with for hours on end and then finally manage to complete it, only to discover you can't get the thing back together...

2. Wax Crayons - set of 4 (yellow, green, blue and red) wax crayons. Presumably for use with #10. Small, fiddly and hard to hold unless you're a mouse.

3. 'Purple' Pen - a low quality, purple-plastic pen that actually writes in blue. Has a smooth click action for extraction/retraction of the nib. Good, all-round use and can also be used along side #2 with #10.

4. Whoopee Cushion - more of a 'squeek' than a 'parp' but then it's easily portable due to it's small size. You can't have everything, can you?

5. Green Plastic Hair Clip - one for the girls I guess, but I find it hard to imagine an outfit that it would go with. When I do manage to imagine an outfit it may go with it's a truly hideous one...

6. Tape Measure - A whole 60 inches / 5 foot / 150cm. Useful for measuring things less than 1.5m. Not many other uses really.

7. Set of Marbles - 6 marbles in a stunning red bag. Pretty useless really as the rules of marbles clearly state that you need 13 in the middle of the ring and then you need ones to play with... Still, it could be used to add to your marble collection (if you have one).

8. Whistle Lips - simply pop it in your mouth and blow it to make a noise like the secret Thistle Whistle only not as loud and without the Scottish Sea Dragons...

9. Playing Cards - small pack of cards for mouse-sized hands. Crackers seem to cater for very small people. I'm presuming it's a full set as I've not been bothered to open them yet to check; I doubt I ever will either.

10. Notepad - small (mouse-sized?) notepad with special 'silver reflective cover'. Contains 50 sheets (well, I got to 27 and figured I was roughly half-way through) and suitable for use with items #2 and #3.

11. Pink Water-Pistol - holds approximately 7ml of liquid and has a range of around 6 foot (180cm) depending on the Strength-of-Squeeze Factor and other GCSE Physics constants.

12. Star Pencil Sharpener - sharpen pencils and other objects of similar girth. Not suitable for use with #3 but will work with #2 (although no guarantee is given).

Now, onto the 'jokes'. It will soon become clear why I have put the word 'jokes' in quotes... Each 'joke' had a number in the corner, presumably so the monkeys packing the crackers did not duplicate a 'joke' in each set of crackers.

1. What lives at the bottom of the sea and shivers?     A nervous wreck.
2. What do you call a crate of ducks?     A box of quackery.
3. Waiter, what's this fly doing in my soup?     The breast stroke, sir.
4. Why can't you play cards in the jungle?     There are too many cheetahs.
5. What do cannibals play at parties?     Swallow my leader.
6. How do you get down from an elephant?     You don't, you get down from ducks.
7. What would happen if pigs could fly?     Bacon would go up.
8. How do you get two whales in a car?     Over the Severn Bridge.
9. Why does a giraffe have such a long neck?     Because its feet smell.
10. How do you start a bear race?     Readdy, teddy, go.
11. What's sweet and swings through the jungle?     Tarzipan.
12. Why did the jelly baby go to school?     Because it wanted to be a smartie.

Boom boom! That's the noise the writers of these 'jokes' will be hearing if I ever met one of them... Not that I own a gun, or condone the use of violence...

Happy 2007!

MaFt

More Spaces Than Ever Before

2006-12-26T16:27:00.000Z

Most people who chat to me via MSN will probably be able to tell you that my keyboard sucks. The space bar tends to be a bit reluctant to do any work so you would quite often have to decipherwhatexactlyiwastyping! However, Mrs-MaFt bought me a shiny new keyboard for Christmas (amongst other things) with, wait for it, a fully functioing space-bar! The possibilities are endless!!

See ya

MaFt

More Daftness

2006-12-21T11:57:00.000Z

I'm sure that old-age is making me lose my mind. I mean, 26 years old IS pretty old really - I'm probably a third of the way through my whole life...

I did another stupid thing yesterday although not quite as girly as being scared of a spider! I was hoovering up in the lounge (ok, maybe it IS as girly...) and there was a big bit of stuff on the floor. The hoover didn't pick it up first time so I tried reversing over it, you know, just to make sure. It still didn't manage to suck it up into the spiders new abode. So I tried again, both going forward and in reverse. Still no luck.

So what did I do? I bent down to pick up this bit of stuff to make sure that it wasn't stuck in the carpet and after confirming that it wasn't stuck in the carpet I put it back on the floor and tried to hoover it up again. Why I didn't just put it in the bin when I'd picked it up I have no idea... Perhaps it was just to make sure the hoover was really working, perhaps I'm just daft... It can't only be me that does it, surely?!

Her With The Hoover

DaFt (my new name?!)

Spider!

2006-12-18T10:45:00.000Z

T'other day, while I was tidying the cellar head and generally sorting out a mass of tools and junk that had been dumped there over the last few months or so, I came across one of these:

OK, it wasn't quite as cartoony as that, but artistic license allows me to use such images. I'm not a big fan of anything that creeps and crawls unless I can easily destroy it with a something the size of a BIC Pen - so this one was out of my league as it had a span of about 15mm; far greater than the preferred method of destruction. In my panicy wisdom I resorted to vacuuming the little blighter up. Problem solved, and how easy was that?!

It wasn't until later on that evening that I realised the spider could simply crawl back out of the bag/hose once I had switched it on... So much for my wonderful plan! It's amazing how thick we can be when we panic about something so pathetic as a spider.

MaFt

A Decade Has Passed!

2006-12-14T20:09:00.000Z

Well, 10 days rather than 10 years... I'm still dead busy hence my complete lack of Blogness! But all is almost done! PW2 went really well and the decorating at the Mother-In-Laws is coming to a close. Once that's done I can get cracking on all the video editing that has been building up since Summer 2005...

That's about it really, nothing of interest has happened! I'll try make the blog a bit more interesting in the near future too!

MaFt

So Much To Do!

2006-12-04T22:57:00.000Z

Both Mini-MaFt and Mrs-MaFt are ill... great... puke and poo everywhere! Seriously!

It has just dawned on me how much I need to get done this week! Not only have I work to do but I also need to get some decorating done at the In-Laws. Then on top of that, tomorrow night we're off to St Georges Hall in Bradford to see 'Love So Amazing 2' - a collection of modern worship stuff. Mum and Dad are singing so we're off to support them. Ro, Punk Worship bassist, is operating the projector for the night so he's gonna spam it with PW2 adverts so I'll have to get a photo of our massive promo!

I also need to get the laptop's prepared for various events at church this week: Thursday is Brigades Christmas event, Saturday is PW2 and Sunday I'm on the rota to project the normal worship service... Thing is, I can't get hold of the church laptop until Wednesday and I'm STILL waiting for people to send me what they want putting on it!

So, that's about all!

See ya

MaFt

Mini-Mrs-MaFt

2006-12-01T22:37:00.000Z

Those who are a bit more alert may have noticed that for a while the sub-title for the blog has said "... dad of one (and another one on the way)..."

Well, here's the other one:

She's due May 1st 2007 :) We're well chuffed!

MaFt

Beat The System!

2006-11-30T19:58:00.000Z

It's December tomorrow and that means Mrs-MaFt will soon be demanding I get the step-ladders out and risk life and limb balancing on them with Mini-MaFt running underneath me getting the Christmas Decorations up.

The Mother-in-Law has been sorting through their lights and all that lot over the last few days and found that most of them don't work - most of which they only bought last year. However, they bought them at the wrong time.

It got me thinking that if you don't mind having your decorations put up a week or so late every other year then you can beat the warranty system and show the big light companies that "you're the man". Well, here's my great money saving idea:

December 20th 2006: buy new Christmas lights with 12-month warranty. Put them up, get drunk and enjoy Christmas.

December 10th 2007: put your decorations up a bit earlier and if they don't work then they are still within their 12-month warranty period and you get them replaced. If they do work, then great, you've not lost out on anything!

For the following years: if you need new decorations then get them as late as possible to ensure you have some time left in your warranty to get them replaced the following year if things go wrong.

Dead simple isn't it? I have far too much time to think...

MaFt

Punk Rock 101

2006-11-27T13:13:00.000Z

"It's stupid, contagious
To be broke and famous
Can someone please save us from punk rock 101
My Dickies, your sweat bands
My spiked hair, your new Vans
Let's throw up our rock hands for punk rock 101"
'Punk Rock 101' - Bowling For Soup

I had a message via MySpazz yesterday saying how the Punk Workshop I was running sounded like a great idea and this guy was going to try get some of his friends to come along.

Now, hopefully, it was a simple typo that was supposed to read 'Punk Worship' and the poor lad wasn't actually expecting a workshop on how to be punk...

In case I am actually mistaken and he WAS wanting a punk workshop then below is my quick guide on how to be punk depending on your age:

Young Punk:

ensure your wardrobe consists solely of: atticus, lowlife, vans or black clothing
deny you are 'emo'
slag Green Day off for 'selling out' after releasing [insert any Green Day album title here]
listen only to the latest 'cool' bands
claim loudly that [insert last week's 'cool' band here] have sold out because they got radio airplay
only go to see your mates bands and download their cd instead of supporting them
have a MySpace page with your friends made up of bands you've never seen and your school chums
explain to everyone that being 'punk' is about not following fashions and thinking for yourself then go around dressing the same as everyone else...

Old Punk:

hate new punk rock groups for at least one of the following reasons: they have good quality recordings, they're in it for the money, they're too young, it's just not '77
wear an old, tatty leather jacket with some dodgy 70's bands Tipp-Ex-ed onto it
go on constantly about '77-'79
show how much you 'hate the system' by working 9-5, 5 days a week, for a multi-national company that exploits cheap labour in China
explain to everyone you meet that 'punk' is about not following rules or a fashion but then dress the same as every other punk and slag off various groups for not fitting the punk rules that, according to your own beliefs, don't exist anyway...
never shut up about the time you saw [insert any 70's punk band here] at [insert any small pub name here]

OK, so that was slightly tongue-in-cheek, but some people annoy me! Having said that there are 2 'types' of punk person that I respect:

1) The young punk who'll go to see old bands and respects the fact that this is where their current 'new' bands got a lot of their inspiration from
2) The old punk who accepts that times change and will go to see and support the new punk bands

That's all for now, I feel I may have babbled! Anyway, it's not 'punk' to moan about stuff that's not government (old punk) or fashion (young punk) related...

MaFt

The Separation of Work & Home

2006-11-23T14:36:00.000Z

It may seem kinda weird but since I've been working on a PC all day long at home I hardly ever seem to have any inclination to use my own PC! While this in itself is no big deal it just means that loads of stuff I need to do keeps getting put off - like the pile of camcorder video's I need to edit and burn to disc, websites I need to make etc etc.

I suppose it's like when I made drugs for a living at Nektar I never wanted to come home and make drugs. Now I work on a computer all day I hardly want to use one in my spare time. But, hey, at least I can make all the drugs I want to now!

MaFt

Damn...

2006-11-17T12:29:00.000Z

MySpace Quizzes

Bugger...

MaFt

The Greatest Band In The World!

2006-11-13T13:20:00.000Z

On Saturday night I, once again, witnessed the greatest band in the world playing live.

Scru', Jim and me headed over to Leeds Uni to catch the Rancid gig. Absolutely fantastic stuff! About 30 songs covering all their albums over the last 15 years as well as a couple of Operation Ivy songs thrown in for good measure. You can't beat the best punk band in the world coming back for their encore branding acoustic guitars - how weird it seemed but it sounded awesome.

Rancid

A good night was had by all. And a sober night too, flippin' £2.70 for a can of Carling...

MaFt

Just Warning You...

2006-11-10T10:31:00.000Z

I've just switched to Blogger Beta where I can now add labels for each post that I make. So, I'm starting to go through all the posts to add the relevant labels to each one. However, if you subscribe to my RSS Feed then you may find that it suddenly seems to repost everything all of a sudden... This is because the posts have to be re-uploaded to add the labels and the feed thinks it's new...

So, sorry if you see lots of posts, but you have been warned!

MaFt

Top 10

2006-11-10T08:27:00.000Z

According to MediaMonkey these are my top 10 most listened to songs:

Welcome to The Black Parade- My Chemical Romance
Since U Been Gone - Kelly Clarkson
The Darkest Places - MxPx
Blessed Be Your Name (live) - Punk Worship Band
Stars - Dude Fish
Punk Rock Princess - Something Corporate
You're Beautiful- James Blunt
The Story - MxPx
Friendly Fire - 3Dbs Down
Divide, Devoid, Devine - Chucky No Stars

What a mixture eh?! Wonder how different that list will be on my laptop... That's for another day!

MaFt

Izzit Cos I Is Black?

2006-11-07T16:27:00.000Z

Well, the blog has gone all black n orange! My two favourite colours. Well, not my favourite colours, more my favourite colour scheme! More changes to come, this is just the start for now!

I'm finally gonna get around to updating my site - well, that's a massive over-statement, the plan is actually to just change the main page to make it either a link to the blog (regularly updated) or the main site (badly updated) - at some point I'll actually update the site a bit but since Mini-MaFt has been born I've not had much chance to write any songs so it's a bit pointless so far! Still, it'll get done.

I recorded the vocals for OPEN YOUR EYES last night which sound pretty good. Just a few more finishing touches and we should be able to get some samples up and get them off to the printers too.

Right, break over, back to work!

MaFt

All Up In Smoke

2006-11-06T10:26:00.000Z

We had a bunch of people round last night for some fireworks. What started off as me, Mrs-MaFt and Mini-MaFt quickly ended up being both our families and a whole bunch of other people too! Still, I'm not complaining - it was fun and Sister-In-Law-H's neighbour made a fantastic corned beef and potato pie.

We'd bought some fireworks from Tesco - just kiddy ones so no big bangs or anything and so had Sister-In-Law-H. I got a text at about 5pm from Brother-T saying 'Got shit loads of big fireworks and rockets see you later'. Well, they were big and there were lots of them, however, they were just bigger versions of the kiddy one's we had bought! Brother-T was gutted that he'd spent forty quids on 'pretty-pretties' of which only two banged. The rockets were good though!

So, it just goes to show that just cos you pay more and they're bigger that that doesn't mean they're gonna be any better! The big-ass fireworks required us to be 25m away from them as opposed to the 5m ones we'd bought originally. So, even though they were bigger they looked the same cos they were 5 times farther away...

MaFt

Almost Recorded

2006-11-04T21:52:00.000Z

Yo, spent most of the day in the crèche at church recording both the drums and guitars for the Punk Worship CD. We rn out of time for getting the vocals done so I'll be getting those done during the week either on my 8-track or down at Ro's... No doubt you'll be kept updated!

Anyway, I'm off to catch up on Torchwood.

MaFt

Enough To Drive You Mental!

2006-11-04T08:07:00.000Z

Yesterday, wherever I drove I seemed to get stuck behind either a learner doing 20mph in a 40 zone or a bus that wanted to pull up every 100m at some imaginary bus stop. Why people don't give me priority on the road I have no idea...

Hopefully today will be better as there's no school traffic to get caught up in!

MaFt

Busy-ness

2006-11-01T10:49:00.000Z

Had a pretty busy week last week! Monday we headed over to Blackpool to see the lights - I'm sure they get slacker each year... I remember the North end used to have loads of big displays at the roadside but there's only about 10 or so now. Maybe it's cos I'm getting older and everything seems much bigger and more fascinating when you're younger! Mini-MaFt enjoyed himself even though it was flipping freezing!

Tuesday was Niece-C's birthday party so that took up the best part of the evening then the day after was her actual birthday - so, again, another afternoon taken out! Working from home is great as it meant I could finish early in the afternoon then just make up the hours later in the evening!

I'm also enjoying Firefox 2 - particularly the in-line spell checker so as I type here it underlines spelling errors! Great stuff!

Then, my free time this week has been spent sorting out the stuff for recording the CD on Saturday and getting music sorted out for PW2... Busy busy busy!

OPEN YOUR EYES

Ta-ra for now, I have to get back to work ;)

MaFt

OPEN YOUR EYES

2006-10-23T09:18:00.000+01:00

www.PunkWorship.co.uk will be recording a mini-album on November 4th with the aim of providing fundage for future PW events. And also to add a kick-ass CD to your collection!

It will feature 4 or 5 new recordings (more details later), a live track from Punk Worship earlier in the year; technology permitting, it should also have some special magic enhanced CD content including a video. There might also be a little extra there too....

So, why am I telling you this? Well, we figured that if a handful of people pre-ordered the CD at a special reduced cost of £5 (plus 50p postage) this would help us with the initial funding for getting the CD's duplicated and the artwork printed. Normal price will be £6 (plus postage) and all profits (around £2.50 at full price) will go towards future PW events which, at present, cost us around £300 (hire/purchase of equipment, admin costs etc etc)

I'll post details in the near future about how you can pre-order OPEN YOUR EYES either by cheque or through PayPal - keep checking www.PunkWorship.co.uk too as well as your inbox - what? you mean you're not signed up to the mailing list?! DO IT NOW: PW Mailing List

Open Your Eyes

MaFt

Lo-Fi.. Why??!

2006-10-12T19:53:00.000+01:00

Today as I was walking around town for a bit I noticed more and more people walking round with music blasting out from their phones. Well, I say blasting, it's hardly loud - just more of an annoyance.

Back in the day the kids had ghetto blasters perched on their shoulders - they looked like complete tits but at least you could make out what music they were listening to. These phones may be alright as music players when you have headphones attached but through a crappy little speaker it's just pointless.

Maybe I just don't understand, you know, with not being part of the MySpace Generation - I never really got into MySpace and I doubt I'll ever get into listening to music in poor quality either...

Much cooler than hanging a phone around your neck...

MaFt

Finally started working!

2006-10-09T16:00:00.000+01:00

Right, I've spent the best part of the day on my new job. Working on behalf of www.PocketGPSWorld.com. I've still got some bits to get used to and learn but I seem to be getting the hang of it so far. The good thing is I'm working from home so can listen to music all day long too! So, if you visit the site during the day you're actually likely to see what I'm listening to (on the left) as opposed to it saying "Nothing".

Also, Grandma died at 7am on Saturday morning. We expecpected it but it's like she was waiting until everyone had seen her before she 'let go'. Mrs-MaFt says that sort of thing hapens a lot - she's a nurse and deals wth death quite a lot. Well, she's not in pain anymore.

And, finally, we had our first practise for PW2 on Saturday morning too. We got through a bunch of songs that we did previously but have made a start on some new songs, including som eChristmas carols too! They sound great :)

Anyway, back to work!

MaFt

Feel Better For That

2006-10-04T09:53:00.000+01:00

Well, I've got to admit I feel a lot calmer now I've actually seen Grandma. It was a long drive to get down there but was worth it. She was very drugged up on pain killers but we managed to get a few grins from her and an almost 'hello'. Thing is, I didn't want to leave - it was like an admission that that was it I suppose. I'dhave happily sat there all day holding her hand but to actually leave was both weird and pretty upsetting.

Still, she's had a long life, had her husband taken as a POW during World War 2 then lost him at a fairly young age (around 50 or so, I think), battled with three lots of cancer but remained optimistic for most of her life.

Not wanting to make this blog too morbid (what with the death of Tinkle the other week!) I'll talk about something happier tomorrow! PW2 is on it's way!

MaFt

Grandma, We Love You!

2006-10-03T09:03:00.000+01:00

Well, I was going to be starting the new job today but we're now having to drive down to Reading. Grandma is essentially on her death bed so work has been cancelled and re-arranged for Friday.

It aint gonna be nice going to see someone and saying 'bye' when you know you'll never see them again. With her living so far away it's been hard getting to see her, but at least she got to see Mini-MaFt last Christmas and didn't stop talking about him for a week!

The chorus of that world famous Space Monkey Three song goes:

"Death comes around to all of us sometime,
At least in Heaven, there'll always be sunshine"

Take your suncream Grandma, and I'll see you soon.

Love Maff

Jobness

2006-10-02T13:41:00.000+01:00

Thought I'd give you motley lot an update! I got a job! Starting from tomorrow I'll be working from home playing on the internet all day, every day! I'll givemore info tomorrow after I've read through the confidentiality agreement as to what I can or can't say about it!

Ta-ra for now

MaFt

Tinkle: August 2001 - September 2006

2006-09-24T09:46:00.000+01:00

There was a stuck on a lamp post near our house yesterday saying:

We'd not seen her since Tuesday night andshe fits the description... Bit gutted really cos she was the first thing we got when we got home after our honeymoon so she was a part of the family from day 8. I know she's only a cat but it's still sad.

Here's a few pictures in memorium:

Rest in Peace, puss.

MaFt

Still Here!

2006-09-21T20:09:00.000+01:00

I've had a few things going wrong this last week or so and now it's time for my excuses as to why I've not posted for 8 days!

First up my wireless router that I picked up for nothing melted. Yes, melted. Dunno what happened but it stopped working and a circlular bit of melted plastic appeared in the outer casing... I opened the router up and one of the capacitors had erupted it's innards all over. Fun! It took a few days to get a decent signal from my older wireless kit. Think I'm gonna save up and get a decent wireless router soon.

Then, the cd player in Mrs-MaFt's car decided it didn't want to grip the cd's anymore. So, after stealing some torque screw-drivers from Brother-T I had the thing opened and tried to fix it but to no avail. Seems that when it couldn't grip a cd it assumed that it assumed that slot was empty so when you added another one (it holds 6) it tried to forde it into the same slot thus knackering the whole thing... Also, the tinymechanical bits that grip th cd didn't appear to want to work anymore. Hunting round I found out that Ford wanted £250 for one!! Get stuffed! Ended up getting a 1cd version off eBay for £80 including postage.

It doesn't help that Ford make their stereo's too big and with non-standard connections so the best bet was to get a Ford one. Also, the dash in Mrs-MaFt's car is all silver so we wanted a silver one to replace it with. Most are black or grey so it was 'fun' trying to find the right one!

So, there'smy excuses! I'm off down to Northampton tomorrow for an interview so I'm gonna get an early night!

See ya

MaFt

Complaint of the Week

2006-09-11T22:27:00.000+01:00

Working in a complaints department can be pretty depressing but every-so-often you get something that makes you literally laugh outloud. Take this example: someone wrote to complain that a 'half-day jeep safari' excursion they went on was misrepresented as it was not a Jeep, but a Toyota Land Cruiser. Apparently a Toyota with a sticker saying 'Jeep' is not good enough...

To give him credit though he did have some other complaints too but the bulk of the letter appeared to be describing the difference between a Jeep and a Toyota Land Cruiser!

Ta-ra for now

MaFt

Bradford - City of Surprises

2006-09-09T19:14:00.000+01:00

One thing I love about living in Bradford is the fact that you can drive around randomly and one second be in a busy village and then the next in the middle of nowhere with fantastic views all around.

I went for a drive earlier with Mini-MaFt up to Denholme and then after that I just took random turns (I had my Sat-Nav with me in case I got lost!). Halfway between Denholme and Oxenhope I stopped off and took these 2 photo's:

So, If you'er ever in or around Bradford just head out of town about 5 miles in pretty much any direction and you'll get some damn good scenery!

See ya

MaFt

Weird...

2006-09-05T23:04:00.000+01:00

Dunno what happened t'other day... Tried blogging from Opera Mini on my phone but it only seems to have done the title and not the content!

Anyway, I'm temping at Thomas Cook for 8 weeks in Customer Relations - it's amazing some of the things people complain about...

Tired now, going to bed! More later

MaFt

back to work!

2006-09-04T13:44:00.000+01:00

International Failure!

2006-08-25T21:24:00.000+01:00

Well, I didn't get the job with Yorkshire Water so I'm still on the hunt for jobs!

Went to town today for the Bradford International Market - t'was very very busy and had lots of stalls but all we ended up buying were some sweets for Mini, Mrs and myself... Ah well, we're just not international people! Some piccies below from my new 3 mega pixel phone (spot the Peter Kay reference ;) )

MaFt

Back Again

2006-08-19T15:59:00.000+01:00

Well, my computer is running again and has officialy been 'pimped' - see below! I'm still trying to get hold of a PSU that will fit inside though...

Officially 'pimped'!

MaFt

Hope exits stage left

2006-08-18T19:18:00.000+01:00

Not had much luck finding a new power supply so am just gonna rig it up to a normal one and leave it on the outside for now. talk about pimp my ride! it'll look just as bad as some of those 'cars' that they deal with on there... i can understand americans doing it to hide their lack of personality but english people?! i thought we were more advanced than that... obviously not, we'll be suing our kids soon for loss of earnings during child birth. i'm sure i've already seen that on judge judy. maybe i'm as bad for actually watching that show! laters, MaFt

A possible result...

2006-08-16T18:00:00.000+01:00

Been up to ccl computers earlier today and they're gonna try get hold of a psu for me. nice chaps! on the way up though brother-n phoned to ask if i could look something up online for him... couldn't have rung at a worse time really! oh well, hopefully i'll be up and running again soon seeing as i sent out an email to 801 people yesterday promising i'd update my Garmin sat nav site tomorrow! doh! it's scary how much you rely on computers as i was planning on printing out my application form so i could refresh myself with what i wrote to help at the interview on monday. bad timing in lots of ways! see ya, MaFt

Bang!

2006-08-16T12:37:00.000+01:00

My power supply on my computer went bang this morning... normally this wouldn't bother me cos it's dead easy to replace a power supply. however, when you have a diddy little computer like mine with a stupid shape and size power supply things get a bit tricky... i've tried it with my mum's psu and all is well so i know it's just the power and not anything else. so, now begins the hunt for a power supply for a biostar ideq 200v small form factor case! let the mobile blogging commence! MaFt

Wrong Name

2006-08-13T19:48:00.000+01:00

OK, so the name of the blog isn't really that accurate butI've been away! After getting back from a week in Alcudia (Northen Majorca) we headed off down to a village called Catchall which is about 5 miles from Lands End. It's a hell of a drive down there! Therefore I'm gonna leave theblog until I've recovered from too much driving and holidaying...

Still, I got back to see I had a letter from Yorkshire Water asking me to come for an interview and assesment too. Things are looking up on the job front!

MaFt

Thought i'd try...

2006-08-08T23:18:00.000+01:00

Just on a mini bus heading back home after a week in majorca. eventful journey going, mini bus crashed and we had a delay of two hours with the plane... great! weather's been good, mini-MaFt's had a great time and the beer's been cheap too! i'll write more later when i'm more awake. oh, and i'm still looking for a job unless Yorkshire water have got back to me while i was away! wonder if this mobile email blogging will work this time! MaFt

LongTime

2006-07-25T10:13:00.000+01:00

Blimey, I've not blogged for over a week! In fact, I've hardly been on the computer for a week...

Been busy doing other stuff like doing some recording for Mr Flett and spedning time mixing it all etc, decorating at the in-laws, looking and applying for jobs and watching Family Guy. I'm pretty much done with the mixing, got a bit more decorating to do and still need to find a job; but after that I promise I'll post a bit more!

In other news, isn't the weather still great? We're off to Shibden Park again tomorrow, apparently there's some rides there that I missed last time. Me, Mrs-MaFt, Mini-MaFt, Mrs-L and Mini-Mrs-L are going so should be good. It's supposed to be 31 celsius tomorrow - now that's hot! That's nearly 90F for you oldies out there.

Talking of oldies and people not understanding modern terms, I heard once that nearly 90% of people thought that 'blogging' was the same as 'dogging'. If you don't know what 'dogging' is then just do a google for it - for some reason I don't feel inclined to hunt out a link for you...

See ya

MaFt

The Plan For Today

2006-07-15T10:28:00.000+01:00

By wearing a red t-shirt I can claim that my red, sun-burnt face is merely a trick of the light reflecting from my clothes...

MaFt

A Few Recent Piccies

2006-07-14T18:48:00.000+01:00

Thought I'd do a lazy blog entry and just stick a few recent photo's up here... (hint: clicky for biggy)

Mini-MaFt in the sun

Broadways Not Ready at the 1-in-12, Bradford

Jess the dog moving too fast for the camera

Sorry, none of me ;)

MaFt

What's The 'Plus' For?!

2006-07-12T17:08:00.000+01:00

I had my 'interview' at the Job Centre Plus this afternoon. What a complete waste of time! The guy didn't even pretend to be interested; I was expecting at the very least a false-front but no, not even that.

He did a job hunt for me but didn't pull anything up, that is unless I wasnted to be a bean-picker in Eastbourne or a cleaner in Rochdale. Neither of which apealed to me and, besides, I haven't had the training. I have to go back to 'sign on' next Monday and then once every two weeks after that. Hopefully by then I'll have found something more appealling than going back there! I can only hope...

So, the great job search continues! I'm signed up to a few agencies and looking every where I know so there must be something for me! No doubt I'll keep you updated!

Ta-Ra fornow

MaFt

Red Red Wine

2006-07-10T11:37:00.000+01:00

We were at a 90th party yesterday and Miss-L on our table was drinking some red wine. Her younger brother came over to try some and found it pretty repulsive. I too find red wine repulsive but it reminded me of the one time in my life hen I enjoyed some red wine.

When I was at Uni, Shoetree had a habit of buying expensive bottles of red wine and sitting drinking them over a couple of consecutive nights. I had a habit of buying massive bars of chocolate and eating them over a couple of consecutive nights. One night, Shoetree decided he'd nick my chocolate... So I threatened to nick the last bit of his wine if he didn't give me it back.

"Yeah right, you're not gonna do that cos you don't even like red wine" is what he said.

I couldn't resist the challenge, so I braced myself , took his glass and finished his £15 bottle of red wine. Damn, it was disgusting! However, Shoetree was shocked and actually gave me my chocolate back! I felt really tight though for finishing off his wine so I let him keep the chocolate.

Revenge is sweet, and that is the only time I have enjoyed red wine! Just thought I'd share that with you.

MaFt

Innit Init

2006-07-06T19:14:00.000+01:00

Innit hot? Or should I say init hot (with one 'n'). I got told off by my mate, Ro, for spelling 'innit' with two 'n''s in the middle in a text. Apparently you should only put one 'n' "cos den u got mor spce in yr txt to tlk crp init".

Yeah, whatever...

So, anyway, it's hot, in(n)it? Thought I'd share that with you in case you hadn't noticed!

Right, I'm off to see Broadways Not Ready now with their new line-up - should be good!

See ya

MaFt

Parkour

2006-07-04T08:33:00.000+01:00

One of the beauties of not working is not having to worry about how late you go to sleep. So, last night I ended up watching a documentary called 'Jumping Britain' which was all about this new(ish) craze called 'Parkour'.

Parkour originated in France and seems to have picked up s steady following in the UK. Now, imagine mentalist freestyle skating/bmx, jumping between buildings, over walls, down stairs and through gaps - now imagine it without any bike or skates: that's Parkour. The site, Urban Freeflow, has a tonne of pictures, info and videos on it. Check it out, it's pretty impressive! Or do a google for 'parkour' and see what wonders you find.

Photo's from Urban Freeflow.

MaFt

The Grand Finale

2006-06-30T20:56:00.000+01:00

Well, that's it, all done! We've had out last supper with Nektar Therapeutics UK Ltd - and what a blast it was. We had a meal at the ChinoThai in Bradford - a top meal it was too! Followed by a fewdrinkies in Lloyds next door afterwards.

Unfortunately I had to leave early to get Mini-MaFt else, in the words of Mr-B, "there would have been carnage". It's weird to think that I may never work with these people again, but I'm trying to get a barbeque sorted for over Summer to catch up with everyone. I can but try! So, another chapter in my life over! Best get on with editing Brother-A's wedding video...

My plan forMonday is to head to teh Job Centerto sign on - I hope there aren't too many scum-bags there... I've only been in there once before and I felt dirty when I left!! Maybe it's got better, who knows!

See ya

MaFt

Update

2006-06-28T22:18:00.000+01:00

Thought I should update you all! The site is closing so as of Friday 30th June I will be officially redundant and unemployed :(

Went out for a few beers yesterday and then had today off. Tomorrow will see us signing everything we need to sign and then Friday we're off for a meal and some more drinks.

It's weird... I'm gonna have to find another job. I might try it Yosser Hughes style:

GISSA JOB, GO ON, GISSA JOB!

Later

MaFt

Forgot to Mention My New Best Friend!

2006-06-26T10:25:00.000+01:00

I had a reply last Friday from my new friend in California, Jazz-Fairy. See previous post: I Am Jack's Headache.

Here's the reply (again, the name has been changed):

Hi Matthew,
Don't be headache. This is Jazz-Fairy, I have been in Nektar more than 8 years. I work in R&D manual filling group in Building 4, California, USA. I am glad to talk to you by email in UK. Your e-mail is really fun and impressed me that you are a very kind person and boss.

My boss (another Matthew) didn't approve my Monday PTO. The problem for me is how I cook the breakfast Sunday middle night and work 7:15 AM Monday morning. I am really headache now. I will be fine and I am always peaceful.

You have a good day!

Jazz-Fairy
Office: 650-xxx-xxx
Cell: 650-xxx-xxx

One thing remains unanswered though... why would you need to cook breakfast in teh middle of the night? Isn't it more appropriate to cook it at breakfast-time in the morning before going to work?! These Oriental-American types crack me up!

MaFt